Party manifestos

Above: Kevin Maguire in today's Daily Mirror discusses the publication of the party manifestos - another of the ritual moments of an election campaign. Kevin Maguire also writes for the New Statesman. He appeared on this lunchtime's Daily Politics, making the point that new media is going to count for less in this election than most people think (which reinforces the view that what works in America will not necessarily work here - the two cultures are different).

Even so, Kevin Maguire does have his own Twitter account: http://twitter.com/kevin_Maguire



Above: report about investment mis-selling (appeared some days ago in the Guardian).

If it is possible to draw up rules preventing financial mis-selling surely it must be possible to have rules to prevent political mis-selling?

My own suggestions are:

1) If a politician is found (by a panel of judges) to have made false or misleading remarks during an election campaign he can be struck-off, fined or imprisoned.

2) All proposals published in manifestos must be measurable, costed, and have an independent evaluation measure.

3) Key manifesto proposals (involving constitutional changes, taxes, irreversable social changes etc) to be formally identified as such.

4) All key proposals in the manifesto of a winning party must be carried out in full within the parliamentary term (failing to do so could lead to a charge of political mis-selling - see item 1).

5) No new key proposals to be introduced within a parliamentary session without a national referendum.

6) Funding of political parties to be limited to one £200 donation per individual party member.

But who is going to take any notice of me...

Identity: Eight Rooms Nine Lives exhibition

Recently I went to the Wellcome Institute in Euston Road to see the Identity: Eight Rooms Nine Lives exhibition.

It was both fascinating and infuriating. Fascinating because of the huge amount of scientific techniques available to define “identity”. Infuriating because the layout was so badly designed so that finding your way around was difficult (especially as I only had my lunch hour, and also there was a big group of students going round led by a very loud American woman who seemed to think she could just push her way in anywhere).

The most interesting (for me) room was the collection of diaries, including Samuel Pepys. I would have liked more analysis on why people keep diaries (as a diarist myself, this area interests me, as I am not really sure of my own motivation). The Francis Galton room was unconvincing – I would have thought improved diet over the decades would throw all his findings into doubt. The Fiona Shaw room was interesting, but not really relevant. The DNA profiling was also interesting, but scary in its implications. The room on the twins was absorbing but I have to be honest and say I didn’t understand a lot of it.

Identity is a big issue in the current election campaign, not least because of the proposal to introduce identity cards. There is widespread unease at the idea of identity cards, particularly as those who do not have one will cease to officially exist. The effect of identity cards will be to create a “club membership” that can be cancelled at will by the government (for anti-social behaviour perhaps, or specific categories of crimes, or even for heckling Jack Straw at a Labour Party Conference).



Above: there were various materials that helped you define your own sense of identity.

And I have to say that the exhibition made me ask: who am I?

Although by almost every demographic rating you could apply I fall into the “comfortably well-off professional”, if you really pushed me to identify myself I would say: white working class East Ender. Until my generation my family were all East Enders, from Bethnal Green, Limehouse and Stepney, and lived there continuously at least since 1750 (documented, although who knows how far they actually go back). I feel I would be disloyal to my parents and grandparents if I claimed to be anything else.

But having an affinity to the East End is problematic. The garbage TV soap opera EastEnders routinely portrays the original population as white trash. The old docks where generations of my family worked have been redeveloped and are now populated by shallow worthless yuppies. The church (St James the Great) where my grandparents were married is now flats. Waves of migrants from all over the world have moved into the rest of the area. Intellectuals and commentators promulgate the myth: “there are no real East Enders, the area has always been a cultural melting-pot”.

This last point needs to be challenged. The vast majority of the East End population, over a thousand years up until the 1950s, has been English. You needn’t take my word for this – the census records are on-line and you can go into each one and see that the overwhelming majority of surnames are English. Not Irish, not Jewish, not Chinese, not “Huguenot”, not Flemish weavers, not descendants of African slaves etc etc. My grandparents came from Limehouse – there were some Chinese living in Limehouse, but they were a small minority, not the majority. Not sure why I feel so strongly over this. But I do want my cultural identity back.

More: http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/identity.aspx

Desire for something more exotic.

The general election was called today. The Queen has dissolved Parliament and new elections will be held on Thursday 6th May. It is an exciting moment, and I will be blogging my thoughts on the cultural aspects of the election period.

Watching the early reports, John Sopal standing on a raised platform (on what must be the steps of the George V statue on College Green) made much of the fact that class is going to be a factor in Labour's election campaign. Gordon Brown in his opening announcement made the point that he is from an "ordinary" background. John Sopal asked Home Secretary Alan Johnson whether Labour would be running a toffs-in-top-hats negative campaign against the Tories.



Above: The Guardian at the weekend promoted a "step outside posh boy" t-shirt showing an agressive Gordon Brown.



Above: There is further evidence of this negative campaigning on the Powerpoint for Labour site: http://powerpointforlabour.wordpress.com/

I am not sure this approach is going to be successful. It didn't work in the Tatton by-election. And Labour also have their share of rich and privileged leaders (this fact has not gone unnoticed).



Above: the top hat as a symbol of poshness may not resonate particularly well - Clement Attlee (a secular saint among socialists) even wore a top hat in the supposedly egalitarian 1960s.

And there is an increasing body of evidence that the "poshness" and privilege of the Tories may play in their favour.

In part this is related to the death (in the United Kingdom) of "mainstream urban" as a cultural influence. Why this is happening is open to debate. Possibly it stems from Barack Obama telling young men in America to "pull their pants up"; possibly it is related to lack of authenticity for the style when transplanted across the Atlantic; possibly it is due to the recession and a consequent mood of seriousness and formality.

But the reason may simply be a mundane boredom with the urban style and a desire for something more exotic.

The famous/infamous Bullingdon photograph showing David Cameron and Boris Johnson in ethnic costumes as exotic as any feather-bedecked New Guinea tribesman seems to have inspired curiosity rather than ridicule.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2007/03/bullingdon_and_blair.html



Above: the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of the influential magazine GQ Style reproduced the Bullingdon photograph as a cartoon, together with a quote from Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. I have looked for some minutes at this image and I cannot detect any irony. This combination of image and text seems to be genuine homage (the ridicule from Anthony Blanche has a psycho-sexual undercurrent and is not ridicule at all...).



Above: also in the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of GQ Style is a fashion photo spread based on the Bullingdon look. Being in such an influential magazine we have to take seriously the idea that this is one of the key themes for the months even years ahead. There will, no doubt, be much wailing and gnashing of teeth in some quarters, but there you are.

Finally, just on the subject of the demise of mainstream urban I was interested in John Harris's article about suburbia and the non-metropolitan condition:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/apr/03/suburbia-pop-betjeman-john-harris

Olympic sculpture

Above: the new giant sculpture planned for the Olympic Park in east London has generated a lot of comment in the media. This is an article written by Fiona Phillips in the Daily Mirror. I kept looking at the design of the sculpture and thinking how it reminded me of something.



Above: it reminded me of the designs by Vladimir Tatlin for his Monument to the IIIrd International 1919. The same type of construction, the same heroic scale, the same chorus of disapproval. It was meant to symbolise the arrival of a new utopian world (but it was never built).

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatlin's_Tower

Easter Sunday

Above: Easter Sunday, and the chocolate Easter eggs this year do not include any by Cadburys (the first time for as long as I can remember).



Above: recipe for Simnel Cake which appeared in the Daily Mirror. My sister used to make the Easter Simnel Cake (she died in 2006). This year I just bought one in Sainsburys.



Above: my "improving" reading over Lent has included this book on Alfred Hope Patten. There is also a full biography of Hope Patten by the same author. Michael Yelton is a County Court judge.



Above: I was sufficently moved by the book to go and look at Holy Cross church in Cromer Street. This was Hope Patten's first parish. The building was locked of course (it was on a weekday morning, and the street is not in the best part of London). The steady rain came down vertically, so that I had to shelter under the awning of a sari shop opposite. Despite its rather run-down appearance, the building seemed to glisten in the rain. There is no mechanism (yet) for creating new saints in the Anglican church, but if Hope Patten were to be beatified this church would become a shrine.



Above: the shrine Hope Patten is most associated with is Walsingham. This is inside the reconstructed Holy House. My brother lives in Norfolk so I have often been to Walsingham.

How quiet it was - the past week at work

Monday

When I arrived at the office this morning news that our Belgian oil client had cancelled their Spanish advertising late on Friday after I had left. This call from Belgium had been answered by Julie (account executive), last in the office, and she frantically tried to contact myself, then Yvette (agency Head), without any success. I had to explain to Yvette why my mobile was not working, and I could tell that she was unconvinced by the (true) story - that I had lent my mobile to my brother who had gone out the previous night and got extremely drunk, had been unable to work the device in this inebriated state, and had thrown it into the river in a mixture of anger and frustration.

In the post arrived a letter, supposedly from a member of the public, absolutely scathing in its criticism of the copy on some ads we have done for our breakfast cereal client. The copy had been written by Yvette, and she became very quiet (always a bad sign) when the letter was put on her desk. Andrea (fellow account manager) told me she thought the letter had probably been written by someone connected to the agency that had previously held the breakfast cereal account.

Lunchtime, and slices of hot pizza in Yvette's office while she held the weekly meeting.

No new work came in from my client list today, although one of the charities made a promising call about a future campaign. As the afternoon progressed, the silence in the offices became noticeable. Every few minutes someone remarked on how quiet it was.

Tuesday

Because things were so quiet I helped Chris (part time lady who does our accounts) with credit chasing. And because they were not expecting me to be chasing money the gatekeepers at various back-sliding clients put me straight through to their finance directors (instead of the usual excuses about them being away from their desk / in a meeting / gone away for Easter). From one client I got not only the money they owed us for February, but March as well.

Eleanor (trainee account executive) was going through a crisis. So overloaded with work (which no-one could really help her with, she muttered obscenities about Yvette. Later she threatened to walk out.

A rep from one of the tabloids dropped in, bringing with her copies of the newspaper for everyone. She disappeared into Yvette's room for most of the afternoon. She came out just as Andrea's dry cleaning was being delivered, and expressed astonishment that anyone could spend £50 on dry cleaning ("doesn't she know there's a recession on!").

Later there was frenetic activity as we all helped Yvette put together a presentation.

Just before five o'clock Yvette gathered us all together and announced that Chris (accounts) had resigned because she could not take all the pressure being put on her (this was Yvette's interpretation). Chris, who works part-time, had already left for the day but will work out her notice. Everyone seemed shocked by this news.

I was the last in the office and met new cleaner Rosemary who started on Monday. Elderly and very frail, she told me she had a long bus journey to get to the office from where she lived. She lives alone and had come out of retirement so that she could meet people to talk to.

Wednesday

My last day in the office before the Easter break. The whole of the morning consisted of a mad rush to get ready a presentation Yvette had promised yesterday to a client. Because it was done at great speed some of the information in the presentation was highly suspect.

A rep from a new magazine came in and talked to Andrea, Eleanor and myself about the new publication.

"You were giving him a hard time" Eleanor said afterwards.

"I thought I was being particularly nice" I said.

Yvette had gone off to deliver her client presentation, leaving us to produce hard copies of the presentation reports (ten of them, with colour illustrations which took ages to print out). We had to send them across to Yvette by courier so that they arrived before the end of her meeting. When the courier arrived to pick them up he spent ages flirting with Andrea ("they've taken me off the bikes and put me on the vans...") so that I had to break them up and virtually push him out of the door.

Yvette came back in a very good mood, so obviously the presentation had gone well.

The final calculations for March had been done (there is a complicated formula which allocates overheads), and the agency has hit its target for the last quarter, which put Yvette in an even better mood (especially as Terry, our ultimate boss, has approved the budgets for the new financial year).

The afternoon was very quiet in the account execs room and a sense of laziness crept over us all. Neil (graphic designer) came in to join us. The day ended with a presentation to Eleanor, whose birthday is tomorrow - Neil had hand-drawn a witty birthday card which we all signed, and Yvette gave her some (supposedly genuine) Eric Clapton memorabilia.

Good Friday

Today is Good Friday. Hot Cross Buns (hot) at lunchtime. The Co-Op ones were stickier than the ones from Gadsbys.

I got up late and spent the morning reading newspapers - the Guardian, the Daily Mirror, the Independent. None of them reported the distribution of the Maundy Money yesterday, nor was it on BBC News 24 yesterday. How is it possible for a national ceremony, involving the Head of State and the state church, to take place without being reported in the national media?

Not for the first time I had to turn to the internet to get the news I wanted: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/8599117.stm

At two o'clock I listened to the Good Friday Music from Wagner's Parsifal (on Radio 3) and then at half-two took the dog for a walk, blustery wind, grey clouds rolling across the sky.

I was still walking at three (the significant moment of the day), Parsifal still in my head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trpnH5awYbw&feature=related

All day the office has been ringing up

I am on holiday today.

But all day the office has been ringing up with various crises (including rousing me from my bed at 10am).

And in the afternoon two clients had "emergencies" they wanted my advice on.

I may as well have gone in to work.

But I have managed to do a little research with Kim Blacha on the cultural influence of the 1980s.

Including coming across this update of Toto's Africa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj_apHSFDgQ

Alex Katz at the Timothy Taylor Gallery

Above: I went to the Alex Katz exhibition yesterday at the Timothy Taylor Gallery just south of Grosvenor Square. The gallery is not near any tube stations, so I got wet (despite the forecast for the rain to clear up by the early evening). Two rooms with the latest portraits by Alex Katz - and also one study of maple trees.



Above: If you click on the image you can probably read the gallery handout. The books on sale were too expensive, and in any case I have a self-imposed embargo on buying more books. No-one else was in the gallery while I was there, which is surprising considering how good an artist Alex Katz is.

Very large portraits of American professionals stare out impassively from the paintings. Alex Katz is the foremost exponent of representing the American jaw. I am looking forward to seeing his portrait of Ann Wintour, which will be displayed at the National Portrait Gallery later this year.

I have abandoned Twitter for a second time

Above: use of the term on the cover of The Observer magazine. Coolness is combined with the word chic (defines appearance) and untouchable (defines accessibility).


Twitter has defeated me again. After a relaunch I was using it as an informal notebook as I researched the cultural meaning of the word "cool". I was beginning to make progress, collecting examples, jotting down ideas, organising thoughts.


As an uncool person myself, bemused for years as to what exactly (exactly) "cool" means, I felt I was close to the philosopher's stone of defining (and thus controlling) the acclamation cool.

But I began to notice my “tweets” (that word still makes me feel uncomfortable – yet another reason why I will never be thought cool) were disappearing. One tranche of tweets vanished and I managed to restore them from notes and partial memory. Then another, much larger sequence dropped off my site.


It seems that Twitter is unstable, and this is happening to hundreds of people. Thoroughly disillusioned, I have abandoned Twitter for a second time, and will continue my pursuit of “cool” via occasional posts on this site.





Above: journalist Hadley Freeman also uses the word cool in association with the idea of certain people being untouchable or unapproachable.





Above: Sky magazine. Hang 10 is a surfer expression that means "When a man whose penis is over 10 inches walks around naked" (I havn't made this up). Unlikely I will actually watch the series.


I can't help thinking Cavafy summed all this up years ago:


In his tomb - ornately designed,
The whole of syenite stone,

Covered by so many violets, so many lilies

Lies handsome Evrion,

An Alexandrian, twenty-five years old.

On his father's side, he was of old Macedonian stock,

On his mother's side, descended from a line of magistrates.

He studied philosophy with Aristokleitos,

Rhetoric with Paros, and at Thebes

The sacred scriptures. He wrote a history

Of the province of Arsinoites. That at least will survive.

But we've lost what was really precious: his form

Like a vision of Apollo.

Recumbent effigy

Another recumbent effigy of a medieval knight. I managed to get into the church while it was being cleaned (hovering off-camera was a lady with a feather duster, waiting to go over Sir John). The effigy dates to 1340, although the armour is slightly out-of-date. Cross-legs are meant to indicate the knight was a crusader, although this theory has been questioned. The feet resting on a lion is supposed to indicate the knight died in battle, although again this has been disputed. A very fine recumbent effigy - my poor photograph does not really show you the detail in the carving.

Although the middle ages was a totalitarian society in the sense that the Church permeated every facet of life, within that overall framework there were a number of secular "cults". Huizinga has done a lot of work on the cult of ancient heroes and the way they were used to foster a national sense of military glory (unfortunately I do not read French all that well, so a lot of his articles are closed to me, but I am very slowly working my way through the Essays). Effigies such as this may have been used as the focus of local hero worship, Sir John being portrayed in a line that led back to historical knights such as William Marshall, mythical knights such as Gawain, and supernatural knights such as the Archangel Michael.

But as always a lot more work needs to be done.

Money came in by itself - the past week at work

Monday

A heap of work on my desk when I got to the agency this morning. It was a busy start to the week, with one deadline following another. As always in these circumstances I felt tense.

Pleasant mild day, and when I was down near Millbank (client visit) I went for a two mile walk along the Thames, the sunlight glinting on the water.

Eleanor (new account executive) was moody and irrational. Yvette (head of the agency) latched onto this and began needling her, as if trying to provoke her to say what was wrong. I was caught in the middle of this, having to listen to each of them moaning about the other ("females!" sympathised Neil, graphic designer).

Tuesday

When the post was brought to my desk this morning it included a Christmas card from Adrian (an old friend) posted on 18th March, and with a note scribbled on the back explaining how he forgot to post it earlier.

Eleanor was in a better mood today. She gave me a bar of chocolate (she knows I am "researching" this area) that incorporated plain, white and milk chocolate. She was still surly to Yvette however, and complained about the amount of work being piled on her.

Close to the end of the month, and Yvette totaled up the billings, becoming quite excited at the prospect of hitting the target for March. She promised us all champagne if we did so, and urged us to look for work we can bring forward and invoice early. I can never see the point of doing this, as it only makes next month's target harder to reach.

Andrea (Account Manager) made an error with an ad for our car client (we only have a small part of the account) and was in deep disgrace.

"I shall begin to deduct the cost of failures from your salary" Yvette told her severely.

"And if we have unexpected successes will the money be added to our salary?" I asked (this was not a wise thing to have said, and I got one of her looks).

Very late when I got home. As I was getting changed I briefly laid down on the bed and felt so comfortable it was difficult to get up again. I set myself a deadline to find another job.

Wednesday

New trainee copywriter Jonathan arrived today. I hadn't realised we were recruiting, so his presence in the offices was a complete surprise ("Can I help you?" I asked when I saw him wandering about). Tall, a bit plump, old-fashioned glasses, aged mid-twenties, foppish hair, public-school background.

Quite a lot of the day I worked on the Spanish campaign for our Belgian oil client. By rearranging the media schedule I managed to increase the profit by ten per cent. This put me in such a good mood that I effectively stopped work for the rest of the day (I always have a lazy tendency to coast whenever I feel I am ahead).

I called an old university friend to wish him happy birthday. He is one of my marginal friends, not someone I know well but we have always somehow kept in touch. We talked about the old days and he asked after various people and I happened to mention I was meeting some other university friends (my real friends) for dinner tonight, and then was appalled when he told me: "Right, I'll come" (as it was his birthday I didn't feel I could put him off).

Early evening I went by train to a small town in Surrey. I met my three friends in the picturesque White Hart pub and we had a round of drinks (which I paid for). I revealed my marginal friend would be joining us and there were expressions of mild disgust (he had not been popular - I have always tended to collect outcasts).

No sign of my interloping friend - I left a message on his mobile telling him where we were going, although the others just wanted to leave him to it ("if he can't get here on time we shouldn't bother about him").

We went to a restaurant in an old red brick hotel (Georgian facade facing onto the High Street). Two of our party were on very tight budgets and ordered the cheapest items on the menu. Our other friend, who has done very well in life, ordered the most expensive things.

Sancerre to drink.

"This is the poshest meal I've had ever" said Richard.

Half-way through the main course my marginal friend arrived, no apology for being late. Immediately there was tension between him and the others (I had forgotten why he had been unpopular - he has a tendency of disagreeing with whoever is speaking). Because it was his birthday champagne was ordered which we paid for - this was a bit unfair on the two who were keeping to a budget.

Everyone at the meal said they intended to vote Conservative.

After the dinner my three real friends dispersed. I also wanted to get away, but my marginal friend suggested walking off the meal, so we meandered round the cobbled streets as it grew later and later. Sinking realisation that although he was probably my least valued friend I was his most valued friend.

Thursday

Despite very little sleep I was only five minutes late getting to my desk this morning. "Make some soot" I said to Andrea (soot is our code for extremely strong percolated coffee). Yvette heard this from her office and protested strongly, but Andrea made the soot anyway.

A slow day - mainly because my reactions were literally slow and I had difficulty functioning. Lots of calls to European publications, all of which began with my saying "Do you speak English?" Money came in by itself, which was just as well as I couldn't have made any effort to go out and get it.

Neil brought in his portfolio to show me. The work was completely unexpected, including lots of crayon drawings of young women entwined with foliage. Half-way through Yvette broke this up, telling Neil to train the new copywriter.

Eleanor behaving oddly again. I have come to the conclusion that she doesn't really want to be an account executive and would like to go back to her admin job. She certainly spends a lot of time sitting at her old desk.

In the afternoon a potential client came in and we (Yvette, account executive Julie and myself) gave them a small presentation in Yvette's office. However Yvette managed to get into an argument with them about how advertising works, and they began to look miffed. Unlikely we will see them again.

I left work at 5 and had to be careful on the train that I did not fall asleep and end up at the end of the line.

Friday

A quiet day. I spent most of the morning drinking coffee and reading voucher copies of out-of-date local newspapers (Redhill, south Wales, Coventry). Showers of rain, but the day was wonderfully mild.

A meeting with Yvette, and I voiced concerns about Eleanor's sullen behaviour. Yvette told me that our breakfast cereal client had refused to have Eleanor handling their work. Mystery solved.

On the train I read the Times Literary Supplement and then The Waves by Virginia Woolf (beautiful prose, but you have to read it slowly). When I got home I had dinner and fell asleep in an armchair. I woke in time for Newsnight and then Newsnight Review (irritating new format where their chairs are too far apart, so that even though we have a wide-screen television you can't see the discussion all at one glance, only disjointed bits).

Hotel Chocolate

Above: my enquiry into the British chocolate industry continues. Hotel Chocolate house milk chocolate has a succulent and seductive taste with several different levels (sweet, aromatic, slightly cloying but in a nice way). The Union Jack pralines were wonderful and I consumed them all at once, one after the other.

Kraft is still unrepentant about the way they have used borrowed money to buy a British institution and rape and pillage its assets to make money for themselves. I would like to see the government ban foreigners using leveraged money to buy British companies (and also put a windfall tax on Kraft's profits in the United Kingdom). Using borrowed money to buy assets is too easy - it just becomes a financial transaction okayed by the bankers (and we know how irresponsible they can be).

Sir Digby Jones appeared on a Radio 4 programme (and also Andrew Neil's Daily Politics) airily saying there was nothing wrong with acquisitions and mergers of this kind. "What people don't understand..." he said, perhaps forgetting that some of us understand only too well how the acquisition scam works and who it benefits. Is it really necessary for a patronising git like Digby Jones to be given airtime to insult our intelligence?

Corrections and clarifications



Above: who are they trying to kid?

In a previous blog post I gave the impression that Green & Black was an indpendent chocolate manufacturer. It now transpires that they were bought up by Cadbury in 2005 and are therefore owned by evil bastards Kraft. I did check the Green & Black website, but obviously not carefully enough (so all the nice things I said about Green & Black in my previous post have now turned to ashes in my mouth).

Waiting for Godot at the Haymarket Theatre

Waiting for Godot is currently playing at the Haymarket Theatre. It's on for another week, but it's unlikely I will get round to seeing it. Samuel Beckett plays are difficult, but they make you think.

Many years ago I saw Beckett's Happy Days and the memory of it has stayed with me ever since.

Waiting for Godot is supposed to be about the meaning of life, and how our existence often reduces down to meaningless waiting about - when you have stripped away all the distractions (including careers, including children) we invent to prevent ourselves from asking the terrible question: what is my life really for?

Caught red-handed

Above: cartoon in The Guardian - Prime Minister Gordon Brown threatens his former Cabinet colleague Stephen Byers (who has been caught red-handed offering to influence government Ministers in return for cash).

Last night I watched Dispatches on Channel 4. Three former government ministers were set-up by the Sunday Times newspaper and made to incriminate themselves. Each of them said they would influence government policy in return for cash.

On one level this wasn't really surprising. Corruption is now so routine at Westminster that you assume most of the government are taking bribes of one kind or another most of the time. It is all on a par with ministerial behaviour in Abuja or Kabul.

But I WAS interested in the connection with Tescos. It has long mystified me how such an abusive and anti-social organisation can get away with outrageous behaviour that damages the national interest (bullying farmers, trashing High Streets, deceiving customers etc). Stephen Byers revealed that they do this by bribing government ministers, and gave the specific example of Lord Mandelson intervening to protect Tescos over recent labelling legislation.

And yet Tescos does not seem to have come under any pressure to explain Stephen Byers's statements. Lord Mandelson waves the accusation away as if it is a silly exaggeration. We are supposed to accept that this is all just election fun got up by the press.

It is illegal to conspire to commit a crime in this country. I would like to see the conspiracy laws used to arrest Stephen Byers and make him explain on oath, in a court, what lay behind his statement about Tescos. And I would like to see the Sunday Times digging around among Tescos head office staff (particularly in their corporate affairs department) to see if any of them will break ranks.

I am especially interested to know whether Tescos has ever paid any money to Stephen Byers, and if so what for, and when.

Also - am I being cynical in thinking that the government expelled an Israeli diplomat today in an effort to knock Stephen Byers off the news headlines? Will the British media fall for this? Are British journalists really so malleable?

More about these evil people: http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=254

Great Central

In the debate over the proposed route of the high-speed rail link London to Manchester, I quite like the idea of it going to Heathrow, but if it has to go through Buckinghamshire it should follow the route of the Great Central railway. Edward Watkin engineered this line to superbly high standards. It should be possible to run the high-speed line adjacent to it.

The original proposal was to continue the line from Manchester through London to Paris.

Everything about the Great Central was done well.

Remains

Sunday lunch at one o'clock (roast chicken) then just enough of the afternoon to go out somewhere.



Above: village in the south west of the county where there are the remains of a medieval castle. Motte and bailey in construction, you can see the earthwork fortifications. An excavation in the 1890s revealed a stone tower on the summit (where you can see the English flag flying). On the opposite side of the river you can see the village with the Norman church on top of the hill. Very mild day. There were various "keep out" notices but I ignored them and went up onto the mound to have a look.



Above: the Castle pub in the village. Seventeenth-century building on medieval foundations. Folk music played on Sunday evenings.



Above: the church was also worth looking around. Norman foundation, but most of what you can see is 14th century. Interesting endowment of a chantry chapel, which should be investigated further.



Above: inside the church were these stones, presumably excavated from the castle. Some of them have inscriptions. The light was beginning to fade.



Above: eighteenth-century tithe map which gave a good overview of the topography of the village and the distribution of land.

A leaflet in the church gave a very sketchy history of the castle but many of the assumptions were outdated. For instance, the idea that the castle was built by feudal overlords to exploit the surrounding area is a quasi-marxist historical view that is no longer really valid. The medieval obsession with nobility was a practical ideology that aimed to reinforce the cohesive nature of society. True nobility was based on virtue, and the idea that all men were equal. Medieval society was divided into twelve social orders, all of which aimed at nobility through virtue. The over-riding idea was that the good of mankind came directly from the virtue of the population.

The offices suddenly seem over-heated - the past week at work

Monday

I got to the agency by 8.45. New Account Assistant Julie was already there (she used to work with Head of the agency Yvette, and told me Yvette likes people to arrive earlier even though she doesn't usually get in herself until mid-morning). Julie seemed pleasant enough and not the great threat Andrea (fellow account executive) fears she will be.

News that Ian Miller had suddenly resigned from the PR Bureau (a specialist subsidiary of the PR division upstairs). Terry K started with the upstairs division today, and was brought round to be introduced. The phone hardly rang for the first two hours, then ads gradually began to come in.

Yvette arrived and immediately called a meeting of the account executives (which Julie also attended, which was interesting). We were told that the agency must make £140k profit for the second quarter. This seems an impossible objective unless we get more (and more profitable) clients.

Yvette went out late afternoon after a bad-tempered stomp through the office. At Julie's suggestion Eleanor (account executive) went out to get some flowers (roses, lilies and freesias) and arranged them in a vase on Yvette's desk with a note that said "From us all". The flowers had a magical effect on Yvette when she returned, and she beamed smiles at everyone, telling us how much she liked freesias.

Her mood improved even more when a series of ads came in with a total profit of £7k.

Tuesday

A day's holiday.

Wednesday

Another busy day, although looking back it is hard to think what exactly I did. Mostly it was a succession of little tasks, continuing to plan the toy client schedule, and dealing with the ads that came in yesterday. The mild weather has meant that the offices suddenly seem over-heated.

Andrea and myself are supposed to transfer some of our clients to Eleanor and Julie. The temptation is to give them the worst clients. But should this be worst in difficult to handle, or worst in terms of low profits?

Observing Julie this morning, she is very hard-working - the kind of person who must be continually occupied. Does this indicate low self-esteem? Or lack of an internal life?

Gordon P, one of the PR consultants upstairs, wants me to place an ad on behalf of one of his clients. But he has been infuriatingly vague about where it should go and what it should say. At one point I had to follow him out into the street to ask for further information.

Thursday

First thing in the morning we were all gathered together to get a long lecture from Yvette about proof-reading. As we dispersed Neil (graphic designer) said cheerfully "What a good day it is". Andrea said "He always says that when we've been told off".

A bunch of flowers delivered to Andrea. Smaller than the mammoth displays she has previously received, but obviously from her lover Paul de Lion. Yvette said that as Andrea's charms wear off so the bouquets will get smaller and smaller (this was very nasty, but the way she said it made everyone laugh).

News that Paul de Lion and Nigel Celeste (another of the former consultants upstairs) had formed their own company. Speculation that Andrea may go to join them. This may well be a good move for her.

The end of the day became very busy.

Friday

I spent most of the morning working on an ad for one of our charity clients (we don't make much money, but they look good on our client portfolio). There was a marked lack of new bookings coming in. Julie spent her time reorganising the job bags, which was an entirely pointless occupation.

A rep from one of the national newspapers came in and talked about special offers. Yvette bullied him, saying she could always get a full page in the Daily Mail for £10k (not strictly true - she can only do this if she buys late space). The rep went away without offering to buy anyone lunch, which is another indicator of the recession.

I went to the bank at lunchtime, and then managed to get hold of a copy of the New Yorker.

In the afternoon I handed over clients to Eleanor, giving her the ones I dislike the most. To my surprise Yvette thought my choices were excellent. And who knows, perhaps Eleanor will have more success with them than I have.

Although work piled up on my desk there was nothing that couldn't wait until Monday, and so I went home at 5pm.

Seth Godin writes interestingly about freelances: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/03/when-a-freelancer-changes-the-game.html

I prefer using freelances rather than in-house creatives. Mainly because they are more motivated, they always deliver on time, there are never any internal politics interfering. But perhaps I just like to be in control too much.

Dogs

Dogs outside a pub at lunchtime. There were five of them in all, and they looked fabulous. It's funny the way just seeing these dogs made me feel happy.